We worked in the newsroom late into the night, watching election results roll in as we prepared articles for each candidate’s potential win. Just like almost every other news organization in the country, we were confident we would be running Hillary Clinton’s victory piece.

A string of wins for Clinton at 8 p.m. turned in now-President Donald Trump’s favor at 11. Political commentators gazed in disbelief as bright red states popped up on the screen. Our managing editor’s normally excitable dog, Bentley, mirrored the eerily quiet room.

“You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bully,'” CNN commentator Van Jones said after Clinton conceded. “You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bigot’… and then you have this outcome. You have people putting children to bed tonight and they are afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of ‘How do I explain this to my children?'”

We solemnly retreated to our homes and watched Trump’s victory speech with housemates. In the aftershock of the greatest political event of our time, a single hopeful thought remained in our heads — “Maybe, just maybe, things will turn out all right.”

The next day was gloomy, rainy and cold, reflecting a mood that would only intensify during Trump’s first year in office. Since then, one statement describes our growing frustration.

“This is not normal.”

It is not normal when the president rarely seems like the one pulling the strings in the White House. It’s troubling when a Special Counsel investigation into possible collusion with Russia consistently reveals coincidental meetings and vastly reduced plea deals. It’s terrifying to think that on Election Day, there were nearly 63 million people willing to look the other way for the sake of their dear leader.

The cult of personality surrounding Trump has slowly been unveiled as a stunningly obvious authoritarian power grab, and his administration has been exercising fascist practices, principles and propaganda.

Ridiculous claims that ran rampant throughout the presidential campaign continue to this day, puzzle pieces of the greater “Big Lie.” The Big Lie is a propaganda term that originated in Nazi Germany, in which leaders tell lies in such a grandiose fashion that some of them begin to circulate within national conversation. More generally, if someone is always telling huge lies, supporters will latch onto smaller ones as truth.

Trump also has a history of discrediting media outlets for covering “fake news” regarding his administration. All, that is, except for two — Fox News and Breitbart.

Both organizations, as well as Trump, engage in “whataboutism,” a Soviet-era propaganda technique where any criticism leveled on the state is redirected to say something else is worse. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have a history of employing whataboutism in response to human rights violations — it’s no coincidence that the far right does the same in its obsessions with Clinton’s campaign and former President Barack Obama’s administration

Witnessing this unfold has changed how we, as well as countless friends, family members and peers, view the world. We’ve completely lost trust in the baby boomers running the reality show we call the United States.

Imagine, if you will, a more politically savvy Trump-like figure — one with the common sense to keep a consistent narrative while lying, staying calm and collected.

Placing this hypothetical leader in the presidency has a very real possibility of destroying more progress. Luckily, younger generations seem to agree.We’ve thrived in the grassroots for the past year and must remain voices of reason in today’s age of ignorance.

“Presume there was a ballroom here in Vienna in the late 1920s or ’30s that looked and seemed as if it, filled with the music and art and literature that was emerging, would continue into perpetuity,” Obama said, referencing the rise of Nazi Germany. “And then 60 million people died. An entire world was plunged into chaos.”

The actions of the Trump administration have reignited our generation’s desire to make things right, not just for ourselves but for every member of our society.

If nothing else, our generation looks like it might come out on the right side of history.

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2 Comments

Take it easy snowflake. This is nothing like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union as described here.

You clearly have been taken by the extreme left wing. The world is not ending as we know it. Trump was elected because people that work hard for a living are tired of politicians and the “swamp creatures” in DC that say they will do one thing and do the exact opposite or nothing at all. In addition, Hillary was the worst possible candidate the Dems could come up with. Not that the GOP did a good job either with Trump.

In 2020, the Bernie Sanders wing will be strong and ready to take money from rich and give to poor. Free education and free medical care for all. This of course sounds great as long as some else is paying for it.
In time, there will be no one left to “pay for it” and you only need to look south of border to Venezuela or Cuba to see the results of what Bernie wants to do for you.

I get it. I wanted to change the world when I was in college. I hope I did improve my small part. But thinking that in the four years that Trump is President (if he is lucky) will doom this Country to what you described will not happen because of what you stated in your piece about the consequences of elections in the USA. Hillary and the swamp creatures need to understand these as well.

Funny thing, Dick, but I remember the DDR before the Wall fell, and the sound of the Bannon-machine propaganda takes me right back. The only difference is that so far, when you’re hearing the wacko propaganda and you say, “um, okay wait, that’s — no, nothing about that is true”, there’s no intourist-type guard standing by staring at you really, really hard or whisking you away.

I wonder how many people harrumphing about how this isn’t the Soviet Union actually spent time behind the Iron Curtain while it was up. Also interesting: been reading Václav Havel’s (look him up, Dick) letters from prison lately, and thinking, man, those Communist Czech prisons sure sound soft compared to the stories coming out of ours.